UNIVERSITY  ARCHIVES 


University  of  Calif  ornia  •  Berkeley 
Gift  of  Daniel  Smiley,  New  Paltz,  N.Y, 


. 


The  Higher  Learning  in  America 


X 


The  University  of  California 
By  Stephen  Fltzroy 


CALIFORNIA  is  the  land  of  the 
Californiac.  In  California,  local 
pride  soars  to  psychopathological 
heights.  California  has  the  best  climate, 
the  smoothest  highways,  the  greatest 
harbors,  the  greenest  grass,  the  reddest 
apples,  the  biggest  trees,  the  sweetest 
oranges,  the  handsomest  girls,  the  most 
sinewy  athletes,  the  acutest  statesmen, 
the  gaudiest  scenery,  and  the  largest, 
most  intellectual  university  in  the  uni- 
verse. 

In  the  center  of  all  this  hurrah  lies 
Berkeley,  the  site  of  that  university,  and 
squatting  against  the  side  of  a  hill  of 
goodly  size,  which  in  the  East  would  be 
called  a  mountain,  are  the  shiny  new 
white  buildings,  the  enormous  Greek 
theater  and  the  imposing  granite  Cam- 
panile with  the  hideous  chimes. 


II 


THE  Californiac,  taking  a  deep  breath, 
and  placing  his  thumbs  in  the  armholes 
of  his  waistcoat,  periodically  gives  three 
rousing  cheers  for  the  Student  Self- 
Government  there  on  tap — an  institu- 
tion which  gives  valuable  training  to 
future  county  coroners,  Rotary  Club 
orators,  and  members  of  the  House  of 
Representatives.  California  campus 
politics,  in  fact,  are  identical  with  city 
politics  or  county  politics  or  State  poli- 
tics or  national  politics  or  any  other 
kind  of  politics  that  exist  among  a  peo- 


ple who  steadfastly  believe  that  one 
thousand  or  one  million  or  one  hundred 
million  casually  interested  idiots  can 
govern  themselves.  Student  government 
at  the  University  of  California  is  con- 
trolled by  a  handful  of  campus  pushers. 
The  great  majority  care  no  more  about 
it  than  they  do  about  the  government 
of  Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.  Few  students 
vote  at  the  elections,  because  few  of 
them  care  a  cuss  which  of  a  half-dozen 
candidates  gets  the  job.  The  remedy 
is  of  course  obvious.  The  students 
should  take  more  interest  in  their  own 
affairs  and  see  to  it  that  the  best  men 
are  elected.  But  the  students  don't — 
and  neither  do  their  fathers  or  their 
mothers  or  their  sisters  or  their  brothers 
or  they  themselves  take  any  active  in- 
terest in  their  local  government  or  their 
State  government  or  their  national  gov- 
ernment. Besides,  the  best  men  don't 
want  to  be  elected  anyhow.  What's  the 
real  remedy  ?  I  give  it  up. 

Ill 

ANOTHER  cherished  California  insti- 
tution, one  that  ranks  side  by  side  with 
Student  Self-Government  and  is  even 
more  ridiculous,  is  the  Honor  System, 
surely  a  droll  appellation  for  the  elabo- 
rate scheme  of  spying  and  tattling  which 
has  as  its  high  aim  the  prevention  of 
cheating  at  examinations.  The  student 
is  most  emphatically  not  put  upon  his 
honor ;  he  is  simply  threatened  with  dire 
punishment  if  he  is  caught  and  given 
away  by  one  of  his  fellow  students. 

63 


64 


THE  HIGHER  LEARNING  IN  AMERICA 


Sentimental  seniors,  who,  having  re- 
pented of  their  earlier  sins,  are  ap- 
pointed to  the  Student  Affairs  Commit- 
tee, make  extremely  long  and  dull 
harangues,  filled  with  hoary  and  oft- 
enunciated  platitudes  by  Dr.  Frank 
Crane,  informing  the  new  student  that 
he  is  "on  his  honor"  and  then  adding 
that  it  is  his  duty  to  make  sure  that  his 
neighbor  is  as  honest  as  himself,  and 
threatening  him  with  loss  of  credit,  dis- 
grace or  expulsion,  not  only  if  he  is 
caught  cheating  himself  but  also  if  he 
sees  cheating  going  on  and  does  not 
gallantly  report  it.  Thus,  if  I  observe 
the  enchanting  co-ed  on  my  left  surrep- 
titiously acquiring  data  on  proportional 
representation  in  Switzerland  from  the 
broad- jumper  in  front  of  her,  and  do 
not  deliver  her  over  to  the  campus  catch- 
polls instanter,  I  am  liable  to  be 
cashiered.  Personally,  I  have  little  de- 
sire to  cheat  in  examinations,  perchance 
for  the  reason  that  I  care  very  little 
whether  I  pass  or  not,  but  I  do  strenu- 
ously object  to  being  forced  to  play  the 
policeman,  the  secret  service  man,  the 
prohibition  agent  to  my  fellow  sufferers. 
And  yet,  even  the  campus  comic  paper, 
The  Pelican,  hotly  defends  this  imbe- 
cility. 

IV 

CALIFORNIA  has  two  monthly  publica- 
tions, the  aforementioned  Pelican  and 
The  Occident  They  are  published  by 
an  organization  called  the  English 
Club,  which,  in  addition  to  publishing 
them,  produces  a  bad  play  every  year 
in  the  Greek  theater.  This  club  includes 
most  of  the  actors,  soft-shoe  dancers, 
saxophone  players,  cartoonists,  scene- 
shifters  and  writers  on  the  campus. 

The  Pelican  is  purchased  widely  and 
specimens  of  its  drolleries  are  occasion- 
ally reprinted  in  Judge  and  the  Literary 
Digest.  It  essays  a  certain  innocuous 
daring  and  specializes  in  razzing  the 
co-ed.  It  is  properly  scornful  of  "slick- 
ers" and  "snakes"  and  "collar  ads," 
though  some  of  its  present  editors  would 
be  judged  guilty  on  all  counts  by  any 
impartial  jury.  Its  strongest  point  is 


its  cartoons;   its   weakest  its  so-called 
humorous  editorials. 

The  Occident,  contemptuously  la- 
beled the  Accident  by  the  common  herd, 
is  a  literary  magazine  that  is  purchased 
by  contributors  and  their  families  and 
friends,  and  by  the  intelligentsia  of  the 
campus,  who  also  read  Sliadowland  and 
the  Booktna-n.  It  is  not  so  bad  as  it 
might  be,  even  though  a  recent  number 
featured  a  short  story  by  Elinor  Glyn 
as  a  model  for  campus  writers  (and 
incidentally  as  publicity  for  the  Para- 
mount movie  company),  and  an  article 
on  the  great  field  for  college  men  in  the 
moving  pictures  by  an  ex-assistant 
director  who  is  taking  a  course  in  "The 
Art  of  the  Theater."  There  is,  of 
course,  always  erudite  critical  comment 
on  the  new  books  and  plays  and  movies 
by  undergraduate  critics  who  announce 
at  the  top  of  their  reviews  that  "this 
book  may  be  purchased  at  the  Sather 
Gate  Bookshop."  There  are  also  some 
very  bad  short  stories,  and  some  lyrical 
gems  about  lolling  in  the  daffodils,  the 
call  of  the  open  road,  and  my  mute  im- 
prisoned soul.  But  then  again  there  is 
occasionally  some  readable  verse  by 
Paul  Tanaquil  or  Stephen  Pepper  and 
sometimes  a  very  fair  essay  by  one  of 
the  learned  doctors. 

The  Daily  California^  besides  giving 
to  an  eagerly  waiting  world  its  inspiring 
editorials  on  "Student  Self -Government," 
"The  Honor  System,"  "The  Morals  of 
the  Students"  and  "The  Necessity  for 
College  Spirit,"  prints  intriguing  articles 
on  the  work  of  the  Student  Affairs 
Committee,  letters  to  the  editor  by  dis- 
gruntled fellows  who  will  subsequently 
write  similar  tosh  to  the  editor  of  the 
San  Francisco  Chronicle,  and  a  column 
of  jokes  by  Marcus  Loew  out  of  B.  F. 
Keith. 

The  Razzberry  Press  is  a  scarlet  sheet 
published  at  irregular  intervals  by  the 
members  of  the  Press  Club,  in  which, 
under  cover  of  their  anonymity,  they 
hurl  ribald  jests  at  (1)  co-eds  and 
sorority  teas,  (2)  prominent  athletes, 
(3)  queeners,  fur-footers,  snakes  and 
frequenters  of  hotel  lobbies,  and  (4)  the 


THE  HIGHER  LEARNING  IN  AMERICA 


65 


personal  enemies  of  the  members 
It  is  nearly  always  amusing,  but  some- 
times a  little  bawdy  and  overdone. 

The  Dill  Pickle  is  a  green  paper  which 
generally  makes  its  appearance  just 
after  the  Raspberry.  It  is  published  by 
co-eds  who  aspire  to  jobs  as  society  re- 
porters or  sob-sisters  on  the  New  York 
Times.  It  is  ordinarily  a  very  feeble 
imitation  of  the  Razzberry,  but  lacks  the 
vulgarity  which  makes  the  scarlet  sheet 
as  good  as  it  is. 

Brass  Tacks  is  a  new  publication 
which  will  probably  be  suppressed  ere 
this  monograph  sees  the  light  of  day. 
It  is  written  by  the  same  pessimists  who 
write  letters  to  the  editor.  Its  only 
merit  is  that  they  commonly  write  de- 
structive instead  of  constructive  criti- 
cism. It  is,  however,  generally  exceed- 
ingly banal. 

I  hear  refreshing  rumors  on  the 
campus  of  a  new  magazine,  which,  I  am 
informed,  is  to  be  called  the  Laughing 
Horse,  and  is  to  thoroughly  lampoon 
every  sacred  campus  tradition.  If  its 
editors  are  not  set  upon  by  the  American 
Legion  and  the  local  Ku  Klux  Klan  I 
have  hopes  for  it. 


V 


THERE  is  considerable  interest  in 
things  literary  and  cultural  on  the  cam- 
pus, whether  real  or  bogus  I  am  not  yet 
quite  sure.  So-called  "culture  courses" 
are  always  heavily  attended,  especially 
by  the  women.  The  men  still  cling  to 
the  good  American  superstition  that 
only  women  and  sissies  go  in  for  that 
sort  of  thing.  Lectures  on  modern  Rus- 
sian literature,  American  literature,  the 
drama,  ancient,  Elizabethan,  Restora- 
tion and  modern,  and  all  kinds  of  poetry 
are  invariably  crowded  to  the  doors. 
Whether  this  is  a  sign  of  intelligent 
interest  or  simply  a  proof  that  these 
courses  are  easy  it  is  difficult  to  tell. 
The  written  critiques  which  grow  out 
of  them  are  mostly  masterpieces  of  ba- 
nality. I  recently  heard  an  apparently 
intelligent  and  well-read  young  woman 
read  a  treatise  on  Hutchinson's  "If 
s.  s.— Oct.— 5 


Winter  Comes"  in  a  tone  of  ecstatic 
awe.  In  the  same  breath  she  spoke  of 
Byron,  Hamlet,  Flaubert  and  Turgenev. 
She  is  typical  of  a  great  many  of  the 
literary  undergraduates.  They  appar- 
ently read  everything,  from  Baudelaire 
to  Guest,  from  Artzibashev  to  Gene 
Stratton-Porter,  and  they  speak  of  them 
all  in  the  same  terms.  I  should  like  to 
hear  this  young  lady  review  "The 
Sheik"  and  "Madame  Bovary." 

One  of  the  most  encouraging  signs 
of  intellectual  activity  on  the  campus  is 
the  success  of  the  Wheeler  Hall  Plays, 
a  cumulative  series  of  first-rate  dramas, 
which  are  presented  on  the  platform 
stage  in  the  Benjamin  Ide  Wheeler  lec- 
ture hall.  Sam  Hume  and  Irving  Pichel, 
the  directors,  starting  from  nothing, 
have  built  up  this  enterprise  until  it  now 
offers  the  best  series  of  plays  being  pro- 
duced in  any  American  university.  A 
new  play  is  presented  every  two  weeks, 
each  production  being  repeated  three 
times.  Schnitzler's  "The  Lonely  Way" 
was  recently  played  for  the  first  time  in 
America. 


VI 


ALTHOUGH  California  is  not  particu- 
larly rich  in  campus  customs  and  tradi- 
tions, she  has  a  few  which  are  both 
unique  and  picturesque.  The  bonfire 
rallies  in  the  Greek  theatre  are  the  most 
impressive  of  the  regular  shows.  In 
spite  of  the  horrible  speeches  which  the 
old  grads  trot  out  and  the  ancient  jokes 
which  are  retailed,  these  rallies  manage 
to  achieve  a  certain  barbaric  splendor 
which  is  worth  all  the  torture  of  sitting 
on  concrete  steps  and  alternately  roast- 
ing and  freezing.  The  great  bonfire  in 
the  center,  where  in  old  Athens  stood 
the  altar  to  Dionysus;  the  thousands  of 
howling  demons  packed  so  close  around 
it  that  their  eyebrows  are  singed;  the 
riot  of  colors  on  the  co-eds,  weirdly 
illuminated  by  the  roaring  flames;  the 
delirious  strains  of  syncopation;  the 
mad  whirl  of  the  serpentine,  the  yells 
which  cause  the  old  hills  to  tremble — 
all  these  things  make  incomparable  spec- 


66 


THE  HIGHER  LEARNING  IN  AMERICA 


tacles.  There  is  something  about  them 
that  you  will  see  nowhere  else,  some- 
thing that  belongs  alone  to  California, 
something  that  makes  the  blood  race  in 
the  veins  of  the  most  unemotional. 

It  is  a  long  drop  from  such  glorious 
and  distinctive  shows  to  the  Smoker  Rally 
which  is  held  before  the  big  game,  but 
it  too  has  something  in  it.  Freed  from 
the  everlasting  censorious  eyes  of  the 
co-eds,  the  men  become  naturally  and 
happily  vulgar.  Sulphurous  stories  are 
told  by  respectable  old  Masters  of  Arts 
and  blood-curdling1  curses  are  hurled 
against  the  Red-Shirts  of  Stanford 
University.  This  freedom  was  once 
achieved  in  two  other  unique  functions 
of  the  campus.  Now  one  of  these  has 
joined  the  shades  of  steam  beer  and 
pretzels,  and  the  other  is  but  a  hollow 
mockery  of  what  it  once  was.  I  refer, 
in  the  first  instance,  to  the  late  lamented 
Skull  and  Keys  initiation,  or  "running," 
as  it  was  called.  This  "running"  used 
to  furnish  one  of  the  highlights  of  the 
college  year.  It  was  vulgar,  yes,  but  the 
whole  thing  was  done  in  such  a  spirit 
of  fun  that  it  could  have  offended  no- 
body but  one  who  deliberately  looked 
for  nastiness.  But  the  campus  vestals 
deemed  this  custom  too  obscene  for  the 
eyes  of  the  W.C.T.U.,  some  of  the 
members  were  expelled  and  the  whole 
society  placed  on  probation.  So  passed 
one  of  California's  most  entertaining 
shows. 

The  other  custom  which  has  fallen 
upon  evil  ways  is  the  guarding  of  the 
"C."  The  ;<Big  C"  is  a  large  gold  letter, 
studded  with  electric  lights,  which  is 
jammed  into  the  hill,  high  above  the 
Greek  theatre.  It  is  the  duty  of  the 
Sophomore  class  to  guard  this  letter 
from  the  unholy  hands  of  marauding 
Red-Shirts,  who  daub  the  sacred  symbol 
with  red  paint  if  they  get  a  chance. 
When  I  was  a  Soph  there  were  barrels 
of  beer  and  sandwiches  and  coffee  and 
other  engaging  entertainment  They 
still  have  the  sandwiches  and  coffee,  I 
believe. 

Unlike  those  of  most  Eastern  univer- 
sities, the  California  campus  is  deserted 


after  class  hours.  At  five  o'clock,  when 
Eastern  men  are  just  beginning  to  come 
out,  the  Californians  disappear.  There 
are  no  little  groups  sitting  on  the  fences 
or  perched  on  the  steps  to  the  library. 
There  are  no  crowds  playing  catch  or 
galloping  around.  The  place  is  utterly 
deserted,  coldly  silent,  except  when  the 
Campanile  chimes  jar  the  air  with  their 
clamor.  The  students  have  gone  to 
their  homes  in  San  Francisco  or  Oak- 
land, or  down  into  the  town  of  Berke- 
ley, or  to  their  frat  houses,  which  are 
all  off  the  campus. 

VII 

COLLEGE  spirit,  while  it  is  present  at 
California,  does  not  assume  the  virulent 
aspect  that  it  has  in  universities  where 
the  students  live  in  closer  contact  with 
one  another.  There  are,  of  course,  the 
usual  bores  who  make  long  speeches  on 
the  subject  and  affirm  that  the  football 
team  will  surely  lose  every  game  unless 
the  student  body  stands  behind  it  "like 
one  man."  The  crowds  do  turn  out  for 
the  football  game,  but  not  because  they 
think  that  it  is  their  duty  to  do  so.  They 
like  football  and  they  have  a  very  hu- 
man eagerness  to  be  with  the  winner. 
California  has  not  lost  a  game  for  two 
years  and  the  crowds  are  enormous.  If 
she  had  not  won  a  game  for  two  years 
the  team  would  play  to  empty  bleachers. 
Nothing  could  tempt  such  a  crowd  to  a 
chess  game  or  a  debate  or  a  soccer 
game  except  free  hot-dogs  and  beer  or 
a  concert  by  one  of  the  campus  jazz 
bands.  The  general  custom  seems  to 
be  to  go  to  what  you  like  and  let  the 
other  fellow  do  the  same.  Of  course  a 
man  who  stays  away  from  a  big  game  to 
attend  a  performance  of  "Hedda  Gab- 
ler"  would  be  looked  upon  as  an  idiot 
by  his  fellows,  but  such  a  thing  never 
really  happens. 

There  is  nothing  particularly  distinc- 
tive about  the  annual  big  game  between 
Stanford  and  California.  It  is  very 
much  like  the  big  game  between  any 
other  rival  universities.  It  is  usually  a 
very  bad  exhibition  of  football. 


THE  HIGHER  LEARNING  IN  AMERICA 


67 


VIII 

THE  faculty  at  California  is,  I  sup- 
pose, one  of  average  sagacity.  There 
are  several  able  men  on  it,  and  the  usual 
old  chromos.  The  passing  of  Henry 
Morse  Stephens  cost  the  university  its 
one  really  great  teacher.  There  are, 
however,  a  number  of  learned  and  sur- 
prisingly liberal  pedagogues,  who  strike 
me  as  being  not  only  mellow,  but  good 
scouts  as  well. 

In  the  courses  of  study,  I  can  pick  out 
no  great  and  distinctive  one.  Perhaps 
the  most  distinctive  is  Great  Books,  a 
series  of  lectures  by  the  venerable  and 
universally  respected  Dean  Gailey. 
Again,  there  is  General  Literature,  a 
lecture  and  reading  course  in  compara- 
tive literature  given  by  members  of  all 
the .  different  language  departments. 
Outside  of  these  two  and  Sam  Hume's 
Playwriting  and  Harold  Bruce's  Critical 
Writing,  I  know  of  no  course  that  may 
not  be  duplicated  anywhere. 

California  has  produced  four  world- 
famous  athletes — Ralph  Rose,  Doc  Bee- 
son,  the  giant  Liversedge  and  Brick 
Muller,  but  only  one  literary  artist.  I 
refer  to  Frank  Norris — and  he  never 
took  a  degree,  but  quit  in  disgust  after 
nearly  four  years.  We  can  claim  a  few 
modern  young  writers — Genevieve  Tag- 
gard,  Hildegarde  Planner,  Paul  Tana- 
quil,  Mary  Caroline  Davies  and  the 
bulge-browed  Sidney  Howard  —  but 
what  a  pitiful  list  it  is  compared  to  the 
one  that  any  good  Eastern  university  can 
offer!  Of  course  there  are  Jack  Lon- 
don, Richard  Walton  Tully,  Max  Brand 
and  Jackson  Gregory,  all  of  whom  we 
might  claim  if  we  wished.  Tenth-raters 
all,  save  perhaps  London,  and  he  quit 
us  after  one  semester.  But  the  woods 
are  full  of  California  graduates  who 
have  become  eminent  merchants,  Ro- 
tarians,  bond  salesmen,  politicians,  mo- 
tion picture  directors,  actors,  news- 
paper editors,  criminal  lawyers,  judges, 
prohibition  enforcement  officers,  boot- 
leggers, and  State  senators. 


IX 

I  AMI  informed  by  old-timers  that 
California  men  are  not  what  they  used 
to  be.  I  suspect  that  this  is  only  partly 
true.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  less  seen  than 
once  upon  a  time  of  the  college  man 
who  chewed  tobacco  and  smoked  a  filthy 
pipe,  wore  decrepit  and  dirty  cords  and 
a  blue  flannel  shirt,  and  sat  on  Senior 
bench  by  the  hour  and  "piped  the  flight." 
Most  of  the  lads  now  wear  belled  trous- 
ers and  silk  shirts,  purple  cravats  and 
beaver  hats.  They  chew  Spearmint  and 
smoke  Turkish  cigarettes.  There  is  less 
obvious  drinking  and  gambling,  and  less 
open  sewing  of  wild  oats,  but  these  great 
sports  still  go  on,  thoug;h  more  circum- 
spectly. I  am  rather  widely  acquainted 
among  the  campus  bootleggers,  and 
every  one  that  I  know  is  heavily  patron- 
ized. Take,  for  instance,  that  little  oasis 
down  by  the  bay,  a  five-minute  ride  by 
machine.  This  little  village  is  affec- 
tionately known  as  the  Land  of  the 
Free.  It  boasts,  to  my  certain  knowl- 
edge, of  nine  bootleggers,  and  two  open 
crap  games. 

But  this  last  frontier  is  largely  the 
rendezvous  of  stags.  Co-eds  are  almost 
never  seen  there,  save  a  few  bold  spirits 
who  occasionally  visit  one  of  the  cafes 
on  casual  slumming  tours.  The  fair 
damsels  do,  however,  sometimes  drop 
into  the  roadhouses  east  of  Oakland, 
the  better  known  and  comparatively  in- 
nocuous places  on  what  used  to  be  the 
old  San  Francisco  Barbary  Coast,  and 
the  resorts  along  the  Frisco  Beach, 
south  of  the  Cliff  House.  All  things 
considered,  though,  these  co-eds  are  not 
such  speedy  sprites  as  they  are  alleged 
to  be.  They  like  their  fun,  their  jazz, 
their  joy-rides,  and  perhaps  a  little  of 
the  spirits  that  inebriate  as  well  as  cheer. 
Some  there  are  who  can  drink  as  much 
synthetic  gin  as  any  man  on  the  campus 
perhaps,  but  they  strike  me  in  the  main 
as  being  a  remarkably  circumspect 
bunch — gay,  sophisticated,  a  little  too 
wise,  perhaps,  but  considerably  superior 
in  intellect  and  horse-sense,  not  only  to 
the  girls  of  day-be  fore-yesterday,  but  to 
their  male  detractors  of  today. 


68 


THE  HIGHER  LEARNING  IN  AMERICA 


X 


WITH  fraternities  I  have  no  quarrel. 
I  myself  belong  to  no  organization 
whatever  and  I  have  no  more  desire  to 
join  a  college  frat  than  I  have  to  join 
the  Masons,  the  Knights  of  Columbus 
or  the  Ku  Klux  Klan.  Yet  I  have 
nothing  to  say  against  those  who  do 
belong  to  them,  or  those  who  aspire  to 
membership.  Fraternities  are  an  ex- 
cellent institution  for  men  from  the 
hinterland.  Raw  youths  from  the  des- 
erts of  Nevada  and  Arizona  and  the 
backwoods  of  Los  Angeles  and  Powell 
and  Market  are  restrained  from  run- 
ning hog-wild.  They  are  made  to  keep 
decent  hours  on  week  nights,  to  devote 
a  reasonable  amount  of  time  to  study, 
to  go  in  for  athletics  or  some  other  cam- 
pus activity.  A  worthy  mission.  Per- 
sonally, though,  I  am  afraid  that  I 
would  not  relish  being  told  when  to 
retire  and  when  to  study,  what  activity 
to  go  out  for  and  what  marks  I  am 
expected  to  get.  Neither  do  I  look  with 
favor  on  the  prospect  of  washing  dishes, 
sweeping  sidewalks  and  running  er- 
rands under  the  supervision  of  natty 
lads  in  tweed  suits  whose  favorite 
author  is  James  Oliver  Curwood. 

XI 

IT'S  a  great  old  show,  this  educational 
circus.  Pink-faced  and  wasp-waisted 
student  editors  flaying  "slickers"  and 
"parlor  snakes";  future  salesmen  for 
"La  Magnifico"  eight-cent  cigars  writing 
poetry  for  the  campus  literary  maga- 
zine; round-shouldered,  and  near-con- 
sumptive Doctors  of  Philosophy  sweat- 
ing over  essays  for  the  Yale  Review; 
baby-vamps  with  bobbed  hair  luring 
credulous  youths  from  Long  Beach, 
Cal.,  into  smoking  Bull  Durham  and 
eating  in  Bohemian  waffle  kitchens; 
aspiring  candidates  for  the  doctorate 
eagerly  seizing  on  Keith  Preston's 
scheme  of  writing  a  thesis  on  the  por- 
nographies of  unexpurgated  classics; 
little  groups  of  serious  thinkers,  meeting 
twice  weekly  to  discuss  the  tendencies 
in  Georgian  poetry ;  butchers'  sons  from 


Red  Bluff  posturing  as  campus  Don 
Juans;  earnest  young  men  aspiring  to 
lectureships  in  the  English  department 
at  six  hundred  a  year;  literary  co-eds 
affecting  horn-rimmed  spectacles,  a  copy 
of  "Droll  Stories,"  and  long  black 
rubber  cigarette  holders ;  whimsical 
essayists,  signing  themselves  "Gentle 
Reader,"  taking  sly  digs  at  modern 
literature  through  the  columns  of  Stu- 
dent Opinion;  prospective  criminal  law- 
yers playing  the  traps  in  campus  jazz 
bands ;  the  editor  of  the  comic  monthly 
breaking  into  the  public  gazettes  in  the 
role  of  profound  thinker  by  hazarding 
the  opinion  that  co-eds  like  to  be  kissed  ; 
committees  composed  of  candidates  for 
the  teacher's  recommendation  passing 
resolutions  closing  the  campus  dances 
one  hour  earlier;  the  president  of  the 
university  taking  the  popular  side  in  a 
public  debate  on  Bolshevism  with  a 
mountebank ;  a  million  dollars  being  ex- 
pended in  building  the  largest  athletic 
stadium  in  the  world.  Yes,  it's  a  great 
old  show  and  well  worth  the  price  of 
admission.  If  California  were  Oxford 
it  couldn't  very  well  be  in  California. 

XII 

IN  summing  up,  I  believe  it  is  the 
customary  thing  to  exhume  all  of  the 
platitudes  that  the  lachrymose  old  grads 
who  ruin  the  rallies  expect.  One  should 
relent  a  little,  toss  a  few  bunches  of 
sweet  lilacs  as  a  sop  and  terminate  with 
some  obvious  hokum  about  the  best  days 
of  one's  life,  the  place  where  one  finally 
found  one's  self,  the  beautiful  and  last- 
ing friendships  that  one  formed,  the 
broadening  contacts  with  superior  in- 
tellects, and  so  on  down  the  line.  Partly 
true,  unquestionably,  but  nothing  but  a 
mouthing  of  the  obvious.  It  seems  to 
me  that  the  best  thing  that  I  got  out  of 
my  four  college  years  was  the  realiza- 
tion that  I  had  no  education  at  all. 
I  have  caught  just  a  faint  glimpse  of 
far-away  vistas,  a  brief,  furtive  sight 
of  beautiful  and  delightful  things.  Four 
years  of  college  have  shown  me  the  first 
elusive  beginnings  of  a  path. 


